El Paso Politics

Let me start by saying this: being right doesn’t always feel good - especially when being right gets you dragged, cursed out, and labeled a   vendido   by people who think “Chicano” has a silent Q. But here we are. Seventeen. Years. Later. And once again,  su servidor  was right. Back in the prehistoric era of El Paso politics - when Facebook still required a college email and people pretended the courthouse was holy ground - I warned the El Paso Democratic Party about one of   our  candidates for a judicial seat: Manny Barraza. And whew. You would have thought I slapped the Virgen de Guadalupe with a voter registration card. The establishment and Old Guard wanted to tar and feather me. Run me out of the party. Burn my D card like it was confiscated contraband. Why? Because I committed the ultimate political sin:   I told the truth about someone on our own team. See, one thing I pride myself on is holding   my   party accountable. I do it bet...

So apparently I hit a nerve. Like nopal en la garganta levels of discomfort. My last post about the Justices of the Peace and their little wedding-ceremony side hustle has certain folks todos enojados. Phones ringing. Texts flying. Whisper campaigns doing cardio. And honestly? That reaction alone tells you everything you need to know. Because if nothing shady was happening, there wouldn’t be this much huffing, puffing, and clutching of pearls. Let’s start with something very simple - because apparently we need flashcards. No one is forcing any Justice of the Peace to: • Keep wedding money • Take it in cash • Hide how much they make • Or pretend transparency is some sort of political persecution They can stop today. Return the money to taxpayers. Put it in the County General Fund. Report it publicly. Boom.  End of controversy. But instead, they’re mad at me. Ah yes. Classic El Paso politics: “How dare you point at the tranza while the tra...

I received a press release last week along with actual journalists a didn’t see it get covered, so I thought I’d share my thoughts on what I think is a pretty interesting story.  By any measure, Fareed Issa Khlayel is not an outsider to civic life in El Paso. A lifelong resident, former school board trustee, longtime nonprofit board member, and community volunteer, Khlayel has spent years operating inside the very systems he now alleges failed him. That history makes the federal civil rights and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) lawsuit he filed against the City of El Paso this week especially consequential - not only for what it alleges, but for what it suggests about accountability, transparency, and power when government closes ranks. The lawsuit stems from a violent encounter with El Paso police officers on Thanksgiving morning 2024, followed, Khlayel claims, by months of institutional obstruction that extended well beyond the incident itself. Importantly, Khlayel is explic...